The Gates of the Festival

source: lissongallery

Mixing animation, sculpture and sound, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg create psychologically charged scenarios dealing with human and animalistic desires. Since 2001, Djurberg has developed a distinctive style of filmmaking, using clay animation to dramatize the basest of natural instincts from jealousy, revenge and greed, to submission and lust. Her partner, the musician and composer Hans Berg, conjures up the atmospheric sound effects and scores the hypnotic music for Djurberg’s animations and installations. In 2004 they began working closely together as a duo to create transgressive narratives rich in symbolic meaning and emotional reach, mining allegorical myths and grotesque, nightmarish visions in pieces such as ‘Tiger Licking Girl’s Butt’ and ‘We Are Not Two, We Are One’. The artists’ interdisciplinary collaborations increasingly blur the cinematic, the sculptural, and the performative in immersive environments that pair moving images and musical compositions with related set pieces or built objects.

Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg currently live and work in Berlin. Born in Lysekil, Sweden in 1978, Nathalie Djurberg received her MFA from Malmö Art Academy in 2002. Hans Berg was born in Rättvik, Sweden in 1978 and is a musician, producer and composer, working mainly with electronic music. They have exhibited widely together in group shows, including the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, while recent solo shows include the ‘The Parade’ at the New Museum in New York; ‘A World of Glass’, at the Camden Arts Centre, London and ‘The Black Pot’ at The Garage Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow.
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source: giomarconi

Nathalie Djurberg was born in Lysekil, Sweden in 1978. She lives and works in Berlin. In 2009, Nathalie Djurberg participated in the 53rd Venice Biennial “Making Worlds” (curated by Daniel Birnbaum) for which she won the Silver Lion for best Emerging Artist. Her upcoming solo shows include exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Camden Arts Centre, London; Julia Stoschek Collection, Duesseldorf. Nathalie Djurberg has had solo shows at: Fondazione Prada, Milan; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Goetz Collection, Munich; Kunsthalle Vienna; MAXXI Museum, Rome; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kunsthalle Winterthur; Frye Art Museum, Seattle. Her works have been featured in exhibitions at: K21, Duesseldorf; Deste Foundation, Athens; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; New Museum, New York; Kunstmuseum, Luzern; Migros Museum, Zurich; MART, Rovereto; Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa; Reina Sofia, Madrid; Kunsthaus Zurich; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; KunstWerke, Berlin; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; PERFORMA 07, New York; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Guggenheim Museum, New York; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Tate Modern, London; Malmo Art Museum, Malmo; MACRO, Rome; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt.
Sponsor of the exhibition will be Birra Menabrea, On the occasion of Nathalie Djurberg’s opening, Birra Menabrea will serve their new brand of beer “Top restaurant”, that has exclusively been made for the Italian hotel and restaurant industry. With her collaborator and composer Hans Berg.
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source: huffingtonpost

Together, Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg and Swedish composer Hans Berg create visceral multi-sensory experiences that mimic the giddy thrill of eating endless sugar, followed by the unsettling sensation that results. They’re primarily known for their grotesque claymation animations that clump together childish whims and animal desires, making blood and guts look like craft materials ripe for squeezing.

Their newest exhibition, titled “The Gates of the Festival,” envelops the viewer in one massive, immersive installation that weaves its way throughout the entirety of London’s Lisson Gallery. The show explores the wily relationship between sight and sound, the moments they converge and separate again.

In one piece, entitled “Gas, Solid, Liquid,” the viewer confronts 10 waist-high urns, each containing within its ceramic confines a unique work of animation and musical accompaniment that vibrates from the urns’ bellies. In “Fever Dreams,” a musical soundtrack combines with light projections to transform white tables into performing sculptures, their tabletops become “impregnated and enlivened by flowing depictions of amoebic organisms, malleable matter and clouds liquefying back to rain and seawater.” These two bodies of work toy with the idea of a womblike environment to mimic the cycle of life.

The main aspect of the installation, “The Gates of the Festival,” features 12 neon shapes hung from the ceiling, each illuminated and animated according to a musical soundtrack provided by Berg. Each tone or frequency choreographs the shape in a different way, in effect “playing” the art piece like a musical instrument. Just to make certain the piece is sufficiently strange, abstract animations will adorn the walls, along with the rotating image of a wiry claymation bird.

Djurberg and Berg explore the dark and sticky urges that flow between your brains and your belly in electric colors and ambient sounds. Their psychological explorations begin as suspiciously cute before molting into something infinitely darker right before your eyes (and ears).
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source: giomarconi

Nathalie Djurberg è nata a Lysekil, Svezia, nel 1978. Vive e lavora a Berlino. Nel 2009, Nathalie Djurberg ha partecipato alla 53rd Biennale di Venezia “Fare Mondi” (a cura di Daniel Birnbaum) dove è stata insignita del Leone d’Argento per il più promettente giovane artista. Tra le sue prossime mostre personali figurano mostre presso il Walker Art Center di Minneapolis, il Camden Arts Centre di Londra, la Julia Stoschek Collection a Duesseldorf. Nathalie Djurberg ha tenuto mostre personali presso: Fondazione Prada, Milan; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Goetz Collection, Munich; Kunsthalle Vienna; MAXXI Museum, Rome; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kunsthalle Winterthur; Frye Art Museum, Seattle. I suoi lavori sono stati presentati in mostre tenutesi presso: K21, Duesseldorf; Deste Foundation, Athens; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; New Museum, New York; Kunstmuseum, Luzern; Migros Museum, Zurich; MART, Rovereto; Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa; Reina Sofia, Madrid; Kunsthaus Zurich; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; KunstWerke, Berlin; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; PERFORMA 07, New York; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Guggenheim Museum, New York; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Tate Modern, London; Malmo Art Museum, Malmo; MACRO, Rome; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt.
Sponsor della mostra sarà Birra Menabrea. In occasione del Vernissage, Birra Menabrea proporrà la degustazione delle nuove referenze “Top Restaurant” dedicate, in esclusiva, all’Alta Ristorazione italiana. Hans Berg, suo collaboratore e compositore delle musiche.
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source: fraeulein-magazineeu

Bekannt wurde Nathalie Djurberg durch ihre außergewöhnlichen Trickfilme, in denen sie mit kindlichen Mitteln wie Knetmasse die harten und zentralen Thema des Lebens verhandelt: Tod, Geburt, Gewalt, Liebe, Macht, Träume und Albträume. Die Musik dazu kommt für gewöhnlich von ihrem Mann, Hans Berg.

In der neuen Ausstellung im Kölner Kunstverein werden sowohl Filme, als auch riesenhafte, infantile Donut- und Eis-Skulpturen gezeigt. Der aktuelle Film, der in Zentrum der Schau präsentiert wird, ist keine “Claymation”, also kein animierter Figurenfilm. „The Black Pot“ erinnert eher an die frühen abstrakten Animationsversuche eines Man Ray: Runde, farbige Formen wabern in verschiedenen Geschwindigkeiten über eine schwarze Fläche und spielen damit auf die vielfältigen Kreisläufe der Natur und des Universums an.